How to prepare your items for the sale

When preparing your items, please be mindful of the condition that you would want to find that same item in if you were considering purchasing it. The more time you put into making your items look perfect, the more money you will earn.

CLOTHING– Inspect your clothing in a well lit room for stains, holes, and functional zippers, buttons, and snaps. We will not accept any items that are stained or non-functioning. Do not bring vintage clothing- only current styles accepted. All clothing must be hung on wire hangers or pant hangers. Up to 3 wire hangers or 3 items may be bundled and secured together. Make sure you have marked your hangers with a distinguishing tape or ribbon as seen on the New This Sale page. Hang all clothing with the top of the hanger facing like a question mark. Only pin clothing to the hanger if you feel they may fall off the hanger with handling. Here’s a video to show you the proper way to hang bottoms. Here’s a 2nd video on how to hang 2 piece outfits. Onesies and sleepers up to 12 months can be placed in a zip lock bag rather than hung.

SHOES/SNEAKERS– Must be in very good to excellent condition. Worn out shoes will be pulled from the floor so please don’t bring them. Attach the shoes together and do not bring them in the box. Light scuffs clean up nicely with a Magic Eraser.

PLASTIC TOYS & EQUIPMENT– Anything made of hard plastic that can be wiped down should be wiped clean. Use a Q-Tip to get into tiny spaces. This is the time that you should check your items for working batteries (which are needed to sell your items).

Outdoor toys should be free of dirt and drained of any water that has seeped inside.

Puzzles & games should have all of their pieces and instructions. Do not use tape to secure your board puzzle pieces together. Instead use ziplock bags for the pieces or cover in Press-n-Seal plastic wrap.

High Chairs and Booster Seats should be free of any food residue. Take the pads off to clean underneath and put dirty straps through the wash.

MULTI-PIECE ITEMS– Place any items you are grouping together into a ziplock bag(s) and tape securely together. Zip-ties are also a good option for securing multiple pieces together.

Tagging

There are 3 steps to the tagging process – Entering Items, Printing Tags and Affixing Tags to Items.

Step 1 – ENTERING ITEMS: After you have prepared your items for the sale (see instructions above), you are ready to enter your items in the tagging system. On the front page of our website you will log in to your Consignor Homepage with your consignor number and password. You will then proceed to “work with consigned inventory” and begin entering your items. A detailed guide to help you navigate your homepage can be found under the Consignor tab/Printable Forms. It is very important to use the item description field to list the brand name of your item. Make sure to include the name brand and distinguishing feature (i.e. pink/blue stripes) in the description field. This is very helpful in enabling us to replace a missing tag during the sale, and getting you paid for your item.

Step 2 – PRINTING TAGS: Once some or all of your items are entered, it is time to start printing your tags. It is important for this step that you have white cardstock. Cardstock is 65# or 110# heavy weight 8 1/2 x 11″ paper. It can be found at Walmart, Target or any office supply store. Tags print 6/page and will need to be cut apart for use. It is best to print on a laser printer set to Cardstock as the bar code portion of the tag must be crisp, clear and readable by our bar code scanners. If your bar codes are printing blurry (lines of the bar code are running together) please stop printing and find another printer to use. You can always generate your tags as a PDF, copy them onto a thumb drive, and take that along with your card stock to Staples to be printed there.

Step 2a – COLOR CODING TAGS : If you are not donating your items after the sale you will need to color code your tags. Color coding means marking your tag with a highlighter based on your consignor number. Pick one spot on your tag and just swipe your color in the same spot on all of your tags. Find your color below

1000-1999 Pink

2000-2699 Orange

2700-3099 Blue

3100-3499 Yellow

3500-3999 Green

4000-4324 Purple

4325-4599 Pink

4600 & up Orange

Step 3 – AFFIXING TAGS: When attaching tags to your items it is important that the tag is secure but will not damage the item when removed. When you are ready to attach your tags you will want to have some or all of the following supplies available (depending on the items you are selling):

Scissors or paper cutter

Clear packing tape

Scotch tape

Painters Tape

Safety Pins* or Tagging Gun

Zip Lock bags

Cable/Zip Ties

Hole Puncher

Press-n-Seal plastic wrap

Tips and tricks for successful tagging

CLOTHING and SOFT GOODS: Tags can be attached to fabrics with safety pins or by using a tagging gun. The preferred location for tagging garments is the upper right side. However, if a pin or plastic tagging gun barb will damage the fabric choose a seam or the tag in the neck for securing your tag.

SHOES/BOOTS/SNEAKERS: It is best to secure your tags to shoes with a zip tie, but first you must reinforce the tag. Wrap a small piece of packing tape over the top of the “pin here” area. Punch a hole through the taped section. Feed the zip tie through the reinforced hole. Only place shoes in zip lock bags if they cannot be secured together using a zip tie.

BOOKS: It is best to use scotch tape or painters tape to secure tags to the back of your books. Please do not cover the bar code of your tag with painters tape as it will not scan. Clear tape is okay. The ideal location for your tag is on the back of the book covering the publisher’s bar code.

LARGE ITEMS: Bring your tag(s) for these items unattached to drop off. You will be affixing your printed tag to a Large Claim Ticket that we will provide. Large Claim Tickets will then be attached to your item with a zip tie or tape. Only use painter’s tape to attach claim tickets to laminated furniture and train tables. Read more about this on the Large Item Prep page under the CONSIGN tab of the website.

We reserve to right to remove any items from the selling floor that have been tagged improperly or do not meet our standards for quality, cleanliness or safety.

Can I use my tags from previous sales?

Yes! If you have previously participated in one of our sales, then any unsold inventory that you still have can be found in your INACTIVE inventory. If you’d like to bring any of those items to our upcoming sale, all you need to do is “work with my inactive inventory” on your homepage, select the items you’d like to bring, and click “make these items active”. That will activate those tags for our upcoming sale. It’s that simple! IF you are going to make any changes to the item (price, discount, or donate) then the tag will need to be reprinted.

Pricing Suggestions

While the prices you set for your items are completely at your discretion, here are a few tips to help get all of your items sold. You can also check this Pricing Guideline, provided by ConsignmentMommies.com.

Price to sell! We recommend 25-30% of retail on most items. Boutique and designer names may be priced higher, as well as items still with tags. Remember, getting a few dollars for a shirt is still better than getting nothing for it, especially when you’ve got a lot of them!

Let your items go 1/2 price on Sunday. It’s better to take home 1/2 price than to have to take back items to the closets you just cleaned out!! The goal, of course, is to sell your items on full price days, so again… price to sell!! Please note that our system will automatically mark for “discount” any items that you have marked for “donation” (So if you’re willing to donate it if it doesn’t sell, we’re going to try to at least sell it for 1/2 price on Sunday!).